High school students from as far away as Florida, Mississippi and Texas travleled to the New Orleans Saints facility Saturday for an athletic training symposium organized by Scottie Patton, head athletic trainer for the Saints.

More than 200 students signed up for the event which included classroom lectures and hands-on training from Saints staff, staff from LSU, University of Louisiana Lafayette and Nicholls State athletic trainers. The symposium lasted seven hours. The classroom lectures featured nutrition, injury prevention and treatment. In the hands-on training, students learned various taping techniques, rehabilitation ideas and experienced a modalities lab.

"From an operations standpoint, this year has been much easier (than the past two years) and each year we think about ways to make it better, different and more interactive and it has gotten better each year," Paton said. "We've only done one session this year versus the two sessions we did in the past. For the attending students, it has been a good day for them and with the speaker and all of the hands-on sessions, I think things have gone extremely well."

This was the third year of the symposium. It was Patton's idea to begin the symposium in 2014 and the interest in the event has grown each year.

"I think any student that attended today's symposium would feel that they have benefitted from coming and attending the classes, the hands-on sessions and just the environment and atmosphere that we have created for this symposium," Patton said. "Also, a huge thanks to all of the volunteers. Without the help of the volunteers with the planning and execution, things would not go as smoothly as they have gone."